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Japan drops Zaha Hadid’s controversial New National Stadium

Japan Architecture News - Jul 17, 2015 - 14:53   5427 views

Japan drops Zaha Hadid’s controversial New National Stadium

An artist’s impression of the new Olympic stadium, designed by Zaha Hadid. Photograph: AP

Zaha Hadid's controversial New National Stadium for the 2020 Olympics in Japan has been dropped due to the overcosts and it will be started again from scratch according to the reports of Guardian. Prime minister Shinzo Abe says that $2bn stadium will be rethought and new plan will ‘start from zero’. Hadid's Tokyo Olympic stadium has always been debated and widely criticized by public and many international architects like Fumihiko Maki, Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma and Sou Fujimoto and a petition was launched calling for the project to be scrapped

The main reason for these attacks was its design scheme up to now and it was declared as a ''monumental mistake'' and expressed  “just ridiculous”. However, this time, public concern is about the cost of the new stadium and “We have decided to go back to the start on the Tokyo Olympics-Paralympics stadium plan, and start over from zero,” Abe told reporters after a meeting at his office with Yoshiro Mori, chairman of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee. “I have been listening to the voices of the people for about a month now, thinking about the possibility of a review,” Abe said. According to reports; The prime minister said he had obtained the consent of Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister, and instructed the sports and Olympics ministers to start preparing immediately a process to choose a new plan. 

Japan drops Zaha Hadid’s controversial New National Stadium

‘Like a turtle waiting for Japan to sink so that it can swim away’: Zaha Hadid’s revised design for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic stadium. Image: ZHA

After these announcements, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) published a statement about the New National Stadium:

"Our teams in Japan and the UK have been working hard with the Japan Sports Council to design a new National Stadium that would be ready to host the Rugby World Cup in 2019, the Tokyo 2020 Games and meet the need for a new home for Japanese sport for the next 50 to 100 years"

"It is absolutely right that the benefits and costs of the new National Stadium should be clearly and accurately communicated and understood by the public and decision-makers in Japan and we hope that this is one of the objectives of the review announced by the prime minister."

"It is not the case that the recently reported cost increases are due to the design, which uses standard materials and techniques well within the capability of Japanese contractors and meets the budget set by the Japan Sports Council," said ZHA's statement.